You Could Be Happy
by glimpseofstocking
Summary: Addison talks with Mark after she comes home from LA. I'm hoping to make this into a series. Reviews would be great :
1. Chapter 1

The sharp click of her stilettos echoing towards the scrub room flooded her ears. She rushed past gossiping nurses and a confused looking Dr. Stevens, but she didn't hear a word they said. She tucked her hair behind her ears and smoothed her skirt before she pushed open the door to find him standing at the sink. He knew she was standing there, but he deliberately took his time before he acknowledged her.

"Hello Addison," he said before he even turned to look at her. The exchanged overly polite greetings with fake smiles plastered on their faces.

"Derek tells me you're moving back to New York"

"I'm surprisingly flattered by the fact that you and Derek talk about me in your spare time"

"So you're actually going back then?"

"What's left for me here? A best friend who refuses to speak to me half the time and an ex…well, whatever we were? And this rain is going to end up killing me. It's time for me to go home."

Addison had only been back in Seattle for a few days but the rain was almost unbearable; everything in Seattle was becoming unbearable.

"How are Naomi and Sam?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly.

She faltered for a moment, surprised that he knew where she had been ", Good. Divorced and still working together, but good."

"Divorced and still working together? I thought that was your & Derek's thing"

"They don't have the dirty mistress working with them, so clearly it isn't the same," she joked.

They both laughed and for a brief moment if felt like maybe it didn't have to be awkward between them. Maybe they could still be friends, just friends. They both knew that it was a false hope. The deafening silence shattered around them, sending shards of glass into their pretentious laughter. It all became so painfully awkward. She watched him staring past her through the window into the empty OR, avoiding her eyes.

"I…uh, I have some post-op notes to do," he excused himself lamely. "We should have drinks later or something, you could tell me about your trip,"

Mark had never been one for small talk (and admittedly, neither had she), but she wasn't going to let him leave. At least not yet. It was painfully uncomfortable, but if she was going to start over in Los Angeles she couldn't have Mark Sloan pressing on her mind.

"Since when does Mark Sloan willingly do his own post-op notes?" she joked, trying anything to stall him.

"I'll see you later Ad," he said walking past her, flashing a half-hearted smile.

She scrambled for something to stop him. Damn it, why was she so anxious? He's Mark, just Mark, she told herself.

"Why did you lie to me?"

He tensed, "Excuse me?"

"That day in the elevator, you had plans. You were going to make it. I might be a lot of things, but clueless is not one of them. You can be the world's biggest asshole, but you were sincere about that. I knew you wanted to make things work. You weren't joking with the 60 days, you didn't want to mess things up again."

"I didn't lie to you, Addison. Making that bet was stupid on both our parts. You know I couldn't have held out," he said, casually denying her accusation.

"Derek called me in LA. He told me what you did, Mark"

The silence was deafening. There was no way he could get out of this now. "Remind me to kick Derek's ass next time I see him."

"You haven't answered my question"

"I should have known this communication thing with you and Derek would bite me in the ass."

She glared at him, folding her arms against her chest.

He hesitated, desperately trying to think up another lie. It's almost easier for him to blame himself. "I…saw you that day with Karev," he said quietly.

Her eyes fell and her mouth formed a silent "oh". Her face was muddled with something greater than guilt, almost shame. Addison didn't do guilt and sure as hell didn't do shame, at least not often and definitely not in front of Mark Sloan. She took her time in responding, "I…didn't mean to hurt you Mark."

"If you didn't want to give us a chance all you had to do was say the word. We could've called off the bet…"

"I did want to give us a chance," she interrupted, "I just thought Karev was different. I thought he was what I wanted and…well, he wasn't and it all blew up in my face."

She had wanted to give Mark a chance, but she was scared as hell. She didn't know what she wanted, but she told herself she knew she didn't want him. She wasn't sure that she was willing to risk getting hurt again. She wasn't ready to risk ripping the stitches out of wound that didn't have time to properly heal.

"Karev is an ass…"

"That seems to be a reoccurring problem with the men in my life," she said bitterly. She could tell her words hurt him and she felt a tinge of remorse as she looked into his eyes.

"I wanted things to be different with us. I still want things to be different with us. I don't want other women, but you refuse to let me have you. I came thousands of miles when you called. I left everything for you because I thought I had a chance. I'm living in a city I hate because if I have even the smallest chance with you, I'm going I'm going to be there to take it. I need you to give me a chance to be more than the guy you use to forget your problems. I need all of you or it's not worth risking again. I'm tired of chasing you, Addison."

She hesitated, tucking lose strands of hair behind her ears out of habit. She doesn't know what to say to him. For all the times Mark Sloan is a complete asshole there are the times when he says the most incredibly endearing things to her. These are the times when her sentimental side (the side that watches one too many black & white movies on rainy days) thinks that maybe they're so wrong for each other that somehow everything could work out right. The times when it's almost physically painful for her to throw away everything they had together.

Despite all the sentiment she's gained from her countless viewings of Gone With the Wind, she's always been realistic. Maybe too realistic for her own good. Her life wasn't a movie and Mark Sloan was not her romantic leading man. Every time she let herself take the risk, reality inevitably hit her square in the chest, leaving her gasping for breath and wanting nothing more than to run away from every problem she had in Seattle. Every moment she stood there with him that empty office in Los Angeles held more and more promise. Everything with them was just a little too complicated.

But she doesn't want to hurt him again.

"There's nothing left for me in Seattle. There's nothing left for either of us. Maybe there wasn't anything here for me to begin with, but I had to try. Come with me to New York. Start over with me"

He stepped forward, his face looming dangerously close to hers. She can't think when he is this close to her. Their breath mingled, playing softly against each other's skin. His hand brushed lightly against her cheek, urging her body to just take one step closer to him. He lowered his lips so that they just barely touch hers, sending tremors through her body. "Come back with me Addison," he whispered into her hair.


	2. Chapter 2

After living in Seattle for nearly two years, Addison Montgomery was still living in a hotel. Well, there was the brief stint in Derek's trailer, but his trailer can hardly be considered her home. Two years and all she had to show for it was a failed marriage and a number of healthier patients. Her life had become ridiculous, and she knew it. She buried herself in work, making her patients her first priority and her own life taking second. She ignored her problems, hoping that maybe everything would work itself out. She had become Derek. And she knew from experience life didn't work that way, but it was easier to go on pretending than to put herself back together, because she didn't even know where to start.

It had been four days since Mark had asked her to go to New York with him. Four days, and he was everywhere. He left countless messages on her voicemail, he waited for her at nurse's stations, watched her surgeries from the gallery, and waited for her outside her office. Addison took to taking the stairs and abandoning the papers that were piling up in her office. She couldn't talk to him; not yet, she had no idea what to say to him. But he was nearly impossible to avoid. He was always there.

-----

Mark had always seemed to be there when Derek wasn't. That night he had shown up when Derek had called home to tell her that he had a late surgery. She got out a bottle of wine and he sat up with her. Talking; just talking.

After all the times she thought she had seen him looking at her, their eyes met. This time he didn't turn away. She could feel herself getting closer to him, but she had no idea what she was doing. And all at once her lips were on his and his hands were on her body. She could feel him all over.

He hesitated on the steps; pulling back, making her look at him. Was this really what she wanted? She told herself that it was; he had been there, he had looked at her like Derek used to. She needed that. She needed to be wanted by someone. She needed him, because their bodies colliding was so wickedly satisfying.

She saw him standing in the doorway, and her heart sank. His body was tensed and his face was ridden with absolute indifference. He stared right into her eyes, disgusted, and then slowly turned away, making his way down the darkened hallway. She whispered his name, pushing Mark's hands away from her thighs.

The rain lasted into the next day. Derek was gone and his words had echoed through her all night, not letting her sleep. She had gone through the entire house, scrubbing everything clean until her hands were raw and blistered. The door opened and for a fleeting moment she tried to convince herself it was Derek. But suddenly there was Mark standing against the couch, still wearing the same clothes from the night before. She collapsed into his arms, completely exhausted.

She stayed with him to justify to herself what she had done. She had ruined everything she had in a matter of minutes. She refused to let Mark be the person who she used to get back at her husband. She wasn't going to be the bitch that sleeps with her husband's best friend to get his attention. There had to be something there, she needed something to be there, and maybe there was. She made herself be happy with him, and there were times when she genuinely was happy. Or as happy as she would let herself be. He made her laugh and he made her feel like she wasn't as repulsive as she felt. But whenever he touched her all she could feel was that rain beating down on her, and there she was, begging for Derek to let her back inside.

The stick was blue. Damn it. When did she let her life become a bad episode of Dynasty? It was all so fucking poetic. She had to tell him, didn't she?

She had walked in on them; in the on-call room of all places, he hadn't even taken the time to leave the hospital they both worked in. It was so cheap. She was a nurse, Charlene. She hadn't expected it to hurt. She had promised herself not to have expectations. After all, he was Mark. She made the appointment that afternoon.

She felt empty. Empty and exhausted. She flipped open her cell phone to listen to the message from Richard Webber one more time. It still hurt. Maybe she had let herself love Mark, maybe just a little.

-----

She checked the Board, he was in surgery. She headed quickly to her office, locking the door behind her. There was work to be done and she didn't have nearly enough time to even put a dent in it before her next surgery. She sat down at her desk, overwhelmed by the daunting stack of papers piled on her desk. A blank envelope sat on the top of the first stack. She opened it carefully and a plane ticket fell gently into her lap. Somehow he was always there.


End file.
